


Older Than Me, Younger Than You

by mugsandpugs



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Parenthood, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-01-23 02:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18540925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: Fun fact: I had this saved in my drafts folder as "AU wherein Cherik DOESN'T suck" formonths.A pretty apt descriptor.(If more information is needed, this is an AU where, instead of putting Wanda in an asylum, Erik instead calls Charles for help and they choose to instead raise the little twins together at the X-mansion.)





	1. Chapter 1

Charles hadn't known that Erik was in the states at all, much less in New York, when he received the phone call.

Well, actually, _Ororo_ received the phone call. She handled most of the public-facing aspect of their work, though Charles thought calling her a secretary was undermining things a little. Very few secretaries, in his experience, engaged in aerial combat with as much style as she. 

The call was meant for him, and so the phone itself was brought to his office just as the rising sun from the double-windows brought out the red of his handsome mahogany desk. 

Charles would have thought nothing of it, but Ororo was wearing her Bothered face when she handed the phone over; the one that creased her brow and set her lips in a firm line. 

Charles, meeting her eyes, took a cursory sweep of the surface of her mind. He didn't try to be subtle about it-- lurking in his employee's thoughts was an excellent way to get slapped. 

_What is it?_ he asked telepathically, taking the phone-- receiver and all-- from her capable hands. 

"Trouble," she mouthed, and stepped back. 

Charles held the cool plastic of the receiver to his ear-- heavy things, phones. Perhaps it was time to invest in those newfangled mobile devices he sometimes heard talk of. 

He put on his best press-release voice; cool and smooth, allowing just a hint of his accent to shine through. "Charles Xavier speaking." 

"What in _blazes_ took you so long?! I've been calling all morning." 

Well. Prepared for anything, save the voice of his most beloved enemy; his most hated friend. Former chess partner; former lover; former housemate; former-- 

"Charles!" 

Charles shook himself out of the past and back into the unexpected phone call. "Erik! This is a surprise. Last I heard, you were living in Poland with a human woman." 

The two mutants had not parted on good terms. Charles had rather expected to never hear from him again, actually, save perhaps in court someday. But oh, one word from that voice and a battlefield of emotion again took aim and fired for the old man's heart... 

"I need you." 

Unprecedented words indeed from the proud Erik Lehnsherr! Much as Charles might want to bask in them, he now understood Ororo's wariness. There were shapeshifters, and those able to manipulate voices. 

"I'm going to need proof you are who I think you are," Charles said calmly, and though 'Erik' swore, he didn't question this requirement. 

"Your middle name is Francis. You are a stubborn bastard of an aristocrat, and nobody else knows half of the stupid things you get up to while drunk. You cheat at chess, and 'God Save the Queen' reminds you of your grandmother. You favor carrots with glaze, and yogurt gives you digestive troubles, and during passion you unintentionally project childhood memories of Venice onto your hapless partners. Now will you please _listen_ to me?" 

Charles risked a glance at Ororo, from where she stood still as a soldier before his desk. She appeared not to have overheard this deluge of personal information. He dared not dip into her mind to see otherwise. 

Erik would never ask for help from the likes of Charles were it not both dire and unable to be solved by anyone else in the world. This situation likely required a telepath. Charles wished he was strong enough to decline, to make Erik feel a hint of the anxiety and panic _he'd_ felt when Erik walked out on him, but-- 

But. 

"What do you need from me?" Charles asked, his voice terribly quiet. 

He fell still as he listened. When he again looked at Ororo's patient face, she saw that his eyes had grown enormous in shock. 

" _Twins?!_ " 

* * *

Pietro Maximoff, age six and a quarter, was having a Bad Day. 

Of course, most days were Bad since Mama died. 

There was the funeral, which had been hard, but Pietro was very brave. 

There was the way everybody at school treated him differently-- whereas before he'd been the half-Romani Jew with a scary-weirdo dad and a bruiser of a twin, he was now all of those things in addition to being a half-orphan. Their town was too small not to know that a classmate's mother had died. Rumor followed him like a dark cloud. 

Oh, all of that was hard enough, but Pietro had weathered through as best he could. 

But then things at home had gotten bad. Papa packed away all of Mama's things; her dresses and her figurines and the rouge that had put color in her waxy cheeks, and the wigs she wore after her pretty black hair fell out. 

Pietro suspected this might his fault-- after all, shortly before this purge of memorabilia, Papa had caught him dabbing on Mama's lipstick and wrapping her blue shawl around his shoulders, and had stared at him in that way that made Pietro feel so small. 

Now Pietro didn't have so much as a roller-ball of perfume to remember Mama by, and it made him feel more alone than ever. 

And that was bad, too. But so long as he had Wanda-- his twin, his other half-- he thought he could survive anything else. 

Then, Wanda too began to change. And change was so frightening. Pietro had just been through months and months of change, watching how the Dying sucked Mama dry like an egg through a straw. And now Wanda was changing in the other direction-- filling with fire and rage. When once she'd made sparks dance from her fingertips to delight him, she now caused explosive infernos; moving and breaking bigger and bigger things without touching them. She made the world quake. 

It felt like the colder Papa frosted, the hotter Wanda blazed, like she was trying to melt him and he was trying to freeze her, and neither one was succeeding, but also neither noticed how Pietro got caught in the middle. 

They moved to America for Papa's work-- a sudden choice ripped the ground out from underneath them overnight. Pietro didn't much like America, full of buildings and cars and noise, and people who talked funny and couldn't understand him, and food that tasted different. He hid in his room most of the time, because Papa hadn't put him and Wanda in school yet. Nobody seemed to miss him when he wasn't around. 

Last night, though... Last night was perhaps the worst. Wanda had done something terrible, and Pietro had been so frightened that he'd run straight out the door and to the corner park... And then had kept running. (And running... and running... and _running..._ ) 

He still didn't understand it, not really, but after returning home he'd been very careful not to move much at all, out of fear that he'd do That Thing again and move so fast that everything else-- the cars, the people, the birds in the sky-- stood at a standstill. Pietro hadn't _meant_ to break the world, after all. 

Wanda, too, had been lying low after the Terrible Thing. Papa hadn't left his room since he managed to scrape himself off the floor. Nobody had fixed them breakfast. Nobody had bathed them or brushed Wanda's long hair out in days, and Pietro knew they were both stinky. 

When the big hand and little hand of the kitchen clock both pointed to twelve-- the time Pietro knew meant either noon or midnight, but when the sun was up it definitely meant noon-- Papa shuffled slowly from his bedroom and looked at his twins, huddled close like puppies on the sofa. 

Wanda balled her hands into fists, scowling down at her legs, not saying anything. It was hard to look at Papa. He had bruises; big ones. His left eye was swollen from the Terrible Thing Wanda had done. He walked like he hurt inside. 

The Maximoff-Lehnsherr family didn't hit, not ever. Some children from school had parents that spanked or yelled, but not them. So the weeks of Wanda's screaming and now this new violence had been all the more shocking. When Papa remained very still on the ground for several minutes, Pietro had gotten a big fear that Papa might die just like Mama had. 

So Papa looked at the twins, and Wanda glared at her lap, and Pietro alternated between Papa's eyes and the floor-- afraid to look; afraid to look away. 

"I have a friend coming over," Papa told them, and Pietro's heart fluttered. Their house was not, as Mama would say, "fit for company." It was as messy and dirty as the children themselves-- with so many things, walls, broken from Wanda's rages. 

Wanda didn't say anything. She turned and pushed her overheated face into Pietro's shoulder instead, and that was a relief-- Pietro knew how to make his other half feel better. He took her hand and held her close, knowing it was his turn to be the big twin. 

"What time, Papa?" he asked, and felt proud of himself until Papa frowned. 

"In English, Pietro," he chastised, and Pietro felt hot shame curl in his belly and heat his cheeks red. Papa told him that at least a dozen times a day-- _talk in English when you're in America!_ \-- but it never seemed to stick. Though Pietro understood the language when other people used it, it felt clunky and awkward on his tongue. He always forgot the correct words for he wanted to say, and that probably just made him sound dumb... And anyway, it didn't make any sense! People spoke lots of languages here, so why did Pietro have to stick with this one? 

It made him not want to talk at all, but he was being the big twin right now, so he had to try. "What time is friend coming here?" 

"'What time is _your_ friend coming here?'” Erik Lehnsherr corrected. Then, “I'm leaving to pick him up from the train station in one hour." 

One hour-- one o' clock. When the big hand pointed at the twelve, and the little hand pointed at the one, that was when Papa would leave. 

Pietro gave a nod of understanding, and tried to think of other grown-up things to ask, but drew a blank. What he wanted to ask was, _can we have breakfast?_ What he wanted to ask was, _can we go home?_

Home to their little house in Poland, with only two bedrooms; one for Mama and Papa; one for Pietro and Wanda. Where there was more grass than buildings, and rain fell like kisses, and the neighbors kept goats and chickens and dogs, and there were familiar faces on every corner: uncle Django with his big ears and dinging bicycle, and old Ethelinda with her baked apples, and uncle Vano, who was kind of mean but funny, too, and Rabbi Fedorowicz who kept a hutch of rabbits in her garden, and, and… 

And, asking was useless. The answer was just no, no; always no. 

Papa nodded his head, and turned around, and went back to his bedroom. The plumbing creaked as he washed up, and then there was rustling as he got dressed. 

Wanda lifted her face off Pietro's shoulder. "He's going to send me away," she whispered miserably, and Pietro startled. Surely Papa would never go _that_ far; wouldn't break their family even further than it had already been crunched... 

He remembered, again, how much Wanda screamed, and how Papa shut down more every day. How hard Wanda had thrown him, as easily as she might fling a doll. How she threw things around the room with the power of her mind, hitting Papa, sometimes hitting Pietro, on accident. 

Maybe Papa _would_ send her away. 

Glumly, Pietro stood and tugged on Wanda's hand. If they were very, _very_ good, maybe Papa would change his mind. 

His sister followed him into the kitchen, and helped him look for something to eat. Most of it was stuff he couldn't cook-- a bag of rice (he wasn't allowed to use the stove) and cans of vegetables (the can-opener was too hard to use), but there was a bag of apples, too, and they were only a little soft and brown in places. The twins ate a few of those. Then Pietro took Wanda to her messy room and did his best to brush her hair, though she yelled and sparked tiny flames when he tugged at the tangles. 

They heard when Papa left in the car. It was a little bit of a relief, though Pietro felt naughty for even thinking that way. There was a time when Papa's company had been the best treat in the world, but now being around him made Pietro feel like he was choking; struggling to stay afloat, to not make the man mad. 

If Papa never came back, Pietro would have to learn how to use the can opener; that was all. He'd have to get over his fear of taking a bath by himself. 

But he did come back, after Pietro had gotten he and Wanda dressed, making sure to get their shoes on the correct feet this time and tying the laces with bunny-ear precision. After he'd done his best to pick up the mess, though most of it was too heavy or sharp to lift. 

When the big hand was on the one and the little hand, on the nine, Pietro heard the rumble of the car outside and dared peep out the front-facing window, joined by his sister soon enough. 

There were three people in the car, he saw: Papa driving, a woman beside him and, in the back, a man. 

There was something strapped to the top of the car. Papa got out first and went to pull it down. He unfolded it, and Pietro saw it was a padded chair with huge wheels. He set it on the ground just as the woman climbed out of the passenger seat. 

She and Papa both went to the back and helped a the man out of the car. He was as bald as an egg. When the three of them got the man into the chair, Pietro understood in a rush. 

"His legs don't work," he told Wanda, proud to have puzzled this out. Sure enough, once the man was seated, he directed the wheels to move alongside the other two grown-ups. "Just like Wioleta's grandmother." 

The chair didn't bother him, but that bald head reminded him a little of Mama after she'd gotten sick, and that was scary. Scary enough that, when the three adults approached, Pietro found himself retreating to the back of the house. 

Wanda had no such compunctions. Still peeking through the window she exclaimed, "Papa's making a metal ramp! So the chair can roll to the door--" 

In a surge of panic, Pietro ran for his sister, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her back into the hallway with him. She gasped like a landed trout, staring at him with enormous blue eyes. "How did you move so _fast--?!_ " 

Pietro clapped a hand over her mouth as Papa used his powers over metal to unlock the door and let himself in. 

"I apologize for the mess," Papa said, and there was grunting as he moved chunks of wall and furniture around so the wheelchair had a clear path. The thick wheels crunched as they ground the broken glass. "But do you see what I mean? She's out of control! I'm at my wit's end. I don't know what to _do_ anymore. If I'd been the one to die, and Magda had lived--" 

"Don't say that," the woman interrupted, her voice rich and warm. 

"Yes," agreed the man. "We have an impressionable audience. Good Lord, Erik; I still can't wrap my mind around it-- you had _children!_ And with a human woman, to boot. How on earth--" 

"Charles, if you're not yet familiar with the concept of reproduction at this stage in your life, I don't think I can help you." 

"Hush, both of you." There was the fall of quiet footsteps as the woman approached Pietro and Wanda's hiding spot, picking her way over the rubble. "Children?" 

Pietro shrank back, but Wanda had evidently had enough of being suppressed. She wiggled and grunted and, when her little brother did not let go, she nipped his hand. 

"Ouch!" 

Wanda squirmed out of his hold and stepped from the shadows. "Who are _you?_ " she asked the woman. 

Not minutes later, Wanda was being fussed over by the two men while Pietro sat in the only functioning chair of their crushed kitchen table, legs dangling, trying to eavesdrop without being noticed. Unfortunately, it seemed he couldn't avoid detection forever. 

The woman was so pretty. She was tall-- almost as tall as Papa-- and had very dark skin. She was dressed nicely, like the lady on the news and weather channel on TV, but her snow-white hair was shaved on either side and stuck straight up in the middle, like the punk dancers in music videos. 

She knelt beside Pietro's chair and looked up at him with kind blue eyes. And though she was nothing like Mama, the gentleness Pietro saw there reminded him of her, anyway. 

"Hello," she said. She talked in English, but she had a foreign accent Pietro didn't know. It made him feel a little better to know she wasn't from here, either. "My name is Ororo Munroe." 

Oh, Pietro _liked_ that name. It rolled off his tongue like water when he repeated it aloud. 

She smiled, revealing deep dimples in her cheeks. "What is _your_ name?" 

"Pietro," said Pietro, and held his hand out like Mama had taught him to do when meeting new people. Ororo's smile brightened when she took and shook it. 

"Pietro, I am a lot like your father. I can do special things, too." 

Pietro wasn't sure how he felt about that. Yes, it was wonderful when Papa made incredible things out of metal, but it could just as easily be terrifying. It was certainly frightening when Wanda used _her_ powers. 

"Would you like to see?" Ororo asked, and Pietro hesitantly nodded, though he secretly tightened the muscles in his legs, prepared to run if she became mean. 

Ororo held her palm out and, against her dark skin, water began to pool, then crystalize. In seconds she held an enormous, perfect snowflake. Pietro gawked, reaching for it. 

She let him have it. He held it carefully, tilting it back and forth, admiring the fractals that sparkled in the light. It melted in a second from the heat of his fingers, but it had been so beautiful while it lasted. 

"That's so cool," Pietro said reverently, forgetting to speak in English, but Ororo didn't chastise him for the slip. In textbook-perfect Polish she replied, "I think you're cool, too. Do you want to show me your room while your father and Charles talk to Wanda?" 

Pietro glanced at Papa, but his father wasn't looking at him; all his attention was focused on the man in the chair. He didn't want to get scolded for bothering them. 

"Okay," he agreed, and stood. He took Ororo's hand again as they walked, pretending to lead her like a gentlemen, but really, he just felt safer holding on tight as they passed the grown-ups and Wanda. He didn't think snowflakes could protect him all that much from an outburst, but it was better than nothing. "I have _lots_ of horses," he added proudly-- a whole shoebox full of plastic ones, and a few soft ones to hold at night, and some pictures to tape on the walls, too. 

Ororo smiled again. "Good choice! Horses are very strong and majestic. You'll have to show me your favorites..." 

* * *

From the sofa, Wanda glared when that lady took Pietro away. She wasn't dumb! She knew they just wanted to get her alone, and then the bald guy would take her away... 

"Hello, Wanda," he said, and she scowled harder. "My name is Charles." 

Stupid Charles. She couldn't believe she'd let Pietro brush her hair for _this!_

"Your father and I are very old friends." 

"Then how come I haven't heard of you before?" Wanda asked in perfect English. She _wanted_ stupid-Charles to understand her. She wanted him to know she didn't like him. 

"Wanda," Papa rumbled, in his 'that-was-naughty' voice. She looked up fast and fixed her glare on him, letting heat gather in her eyes. She hated everybody in the whole world, but she hated him most of all! She _hated--!_

"I don't think that's true, Wanda," Charles said gently. "You don't hate Pietro, do you?" 

Wanda felt the bottom of her stomach drop out, like it always did when she went on a ferris wheel. She hadn't said those words aloud--! 

"I am a telepath," Charles said. "Do you know what that means?" 

Finally, Wanda looked at him; at his stupid bald head-- he didn't look as old as he should have, being bald like that, but to a six-year-old, all grown-ups were ancient-- and intense blue eyes, tidy suit, and the way his hands were folded under his chin. He wasn't a very big man; even if he'd been able to stand, Papa would have been much bigger. But still-- 

"Does it mean you can call people?" 

"That's a 'telephone,' Charles corrected. "But, in a way, I can." He didn't open his mouth to say his next words, but she heard his voice in her head all the same: _Ring ring! Hello, Wanda!_

Wanda _jolted_ away from him, sparks rising on her skin to singe the sofa, her eyes enormous and her heart pounding. "Did you hear that?" she asked Papa, forgetting for a second that she hated him. 

"Oh yes, Charles," Papa said in that mean voice that meant he was saying the opposite of his words. "Scaring her will _really_ help our situation." 

"Sorry," Charles muttered. "I was trying to connect. I'm not used to children. I'm not a _therapist,_ Erik." 

To Wanda he said, “I have special powers, like your father. I can hear people’s thoughts, and talk to them in their minds. You have special powers too, don’t you?” 

Wanda did, in fact, have _very_ special powers. Case in point, the embers sizzling black spots onto the fabric of the couch. "Why do you care?" 

" _Wanda,_ " Papa repeated, but Charles cut him off with a shake of the head. He leaned forward, his eyes on hers. 

"I do care. I care very much. I think you're a little bit afraid of the things you can do. I think you're... struggling. I think you might need a little bit of help." 

Charles thought a lot of things, apparently. Wanda glanced over her shoulder, wondering where Pietro had gone, wanting him to be _back_ in here. Being in a different room from him hurt. It made her feel lost. 

"It didn't used to scare you, did it?" Charles asked. "Back at home, you sometimes went different places. You had different friends. But you've been so lonely--" 

He was right, of course. Once, Wanda and Pietro had been close in the way that normal brothers and sisters were close; they bickered and squabbled and were friends and were sometimes enemies, but they had their own friends,too; their own hobbies. Since losing Mama and coming to America, they’d become two halves of a broken heart; it was them versus Papa, while the rest of the world ceased to exist. 

"Stop that!" Wanda exploded, and gave Charles’s chair a mental _push,_ sending the wheels rolling him back, smack into the far wall. It was scary having her mind filtered through like this! It was scary being forced to think of the way things had gone bad. 

In a second, Papa had surged to his feet. He grabbed her by the arm, hard, and fear bloomed like a violent flower in Wanda's chest. She raised a hand to throw him, just as she had the night before, but found she... couldn't. 

Nothing happened. 

"What--!" she gasped, and looked around, not understanding. She looked inside herself, searching for the mystical scarlet fire that burned within... and found nothing. 

"I've briefly turned off your access to your powers," Charles explained. "It is very temporary, and you'll be just fine. That's not something I like to do to anybody, but I need us to be able to have a safe conversation. Do you think that's something we can do?" 

Wanda understood that the world was full of untrustworthy adults who wanted to hold her down! She understood that she had the body of a small child, and her big father was holding her arm so tightly it hurt. She understood that without her powers she was at the mercy of those that surrounded her. 

"Erik," Charles said softly. "You're hurting her. Let go." 

Papa looked at his hand; at how his long fingers overlapped his daughter's upper arm. A look of repulsion filled his expression-- did he think she was dirty? 

He let go and sat back on his sofa cushion. She clutched her arm; rubbing it until the white marks his fingers left faded back to normal skin-color. 

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Erik muttered. "But you _can't_ do that to people, Wanda; that's unacceptable!" 

"She can, though," Charles argued. "She can do all these new things, and it's strange, and like a fawn testing its legs, she's seeing how far she can walk. Her mother is gone, she’s in a strange land with no connections, and she's not receiving any guidance from her father." 

Wanda balled up on the sofa. She wanted Pietro. She wanted to put her face on his shoulder until the rest of the world went away. 

"Would that make you feel better?" Charles asked. "Could we talk if Pietro was in here?" 

"Don't _enable_ her!" Papa sputtered, and Charles fixed him with a chilly look. 

"I think a little coddling is acceptable," he pointed out. "Considering the circumstances." 

Nobody talked to Papa like that and got away with it... Only, apparently, _Charles_ could. Papa looked sour, but said nothing else to the contrary. 

A moment later, as though summoned, the lady and Pietro trotted in from the hallway. Pietro held to his chest the blue felt pony Ethelinda had sewn for him when he was a baby. 

The lady stood with her back to the wall, arms folded, and quietly watched the group. Pietro looked around at everybody, then gathered his courage. He climbed onto the cushion between Wanda and Papa, curling his small body over his sister's, and shifted his pony into her lap. Wanda hid her face, but secretly peeked through the curtain of her hair to watch what was going on. 

"This is what they do," Papa said, gesturing to them. "They feed off of each other. Pietro doesn't say a word, and Wanda won't _look_ at me, and eventually Pietro starts crying, and then Wanda explodes. I'm not getting any work done--" 

" _They_ are your work, Erik!" Charles interrupted, irritated. "The moment you became a father, they became your top priority." 

Papa's mouth pinched into a little flat line. Charles snorted. 

"Yes, yes. That's easy for me to say, as I have no kids of my own. And I know you didn't exactly have long with your own parents. Life wasn't at all fair to you, and I'm sorry about that. But please look at the damage you're causing. You asked for my help? _Let me help._ " 

Charles and papa had a bit of a staredown. Wanda held her breath, watching them. Finally, papa relented. 

"What would _you_ suggest, then, oh expert of parenthood?" Papa finally asked, with only a little of his mean-voice. Mostly, this was his tired-voice. Charles rolled his eyes. 

"I keep telling you, I'm not an expert of fatherhood. Or of children. I have some insight to people that others don't, being what I am, but mostly I'm going off of what I see with my own two eyes: things aren't okay here. Did you notice your floor is covered in broken glass?" 

"I might have noticed, yes," papa replied icily. "Thank you for the keen observation." 

"Your floor is covered in broken glass, and you have two six-year-olds running around in it." 

"Perhaps if Wanda stopped breaking everything in creation, the glass wouldn't be broken!" 

"Have you considered asking _why_ she breaks things, Erik darling?" 

Against the wall, the lady shifted, turning to look at the group of four with calculating eyes. Wanda felt trapped between wanting to hide from this conversation, and an urge to join in. They were talking about her... It was almost a little exciting. Why _did_ she break things? 

"She can't stop," Erik said. "I told you, she's out of control. Do you see what she did to me?" He gestured to his bruised face, and Wanda closed her eyes tight. She didn't like to think about that at all. 

"If she didn't have control," Charles counters, "I believe she would have pushed me far harder than she did, just now. If she didn't have any control, I'd think her brother would look much the same as you do." 

Wanda tensed. Would she one day throw Pietro the way she'd thrown papa? She hadn't been able to stop herself from hurting papa. What if someday she... It was unthinkable! 

"Wanda?" Charles asked, and all three adults and Pietro were looking at her now. "What drives you to be so destructive?" 

_I don't know!_ she thought, panicked at all the attention when, until very recently, she'd gotten no attention at all. _I just get madder and madder and madder, and--_

"What makes you so angry?" Charles prompted. 

"I hate everybody!" she snapped, repeating her words from earlier, though with less confidence. Whereas before she'd thought it was true, she was now having her doubts. She didn't hate Pietro, and he was part of 'everybody,' right? And she didn't used to hate papa. It was only after mama died that she started to hate him. Him and his cold eyes and his ears that didn't listen, and his hands that pushed her away as he packed up all of mama's things... 

"You threw away Magda's dresses?" Charles frowned. "That's what Wanda is thinking about." 

What a tattletale he was, digging into her thoughts like that. 

"What? No I didn't. I didn't throw them away." 

"Yes you did!" Wanda argued. "I saw you, putting them in trash bags, with all of her other stuff." She remembered it so clearly; Papa on his knees in the closet, picking up all of mama's shoes like they were nothing, stuffing them into a garbage bag while Wanda squirmed in silent panic behind him, her heart choking and knotting inside her because those were mama's things! Mama loved those shoes! _Mama--!_

"I gave them to Rabbi Fedorowicz, to donate them. We didn't need them anymore." 

Oh... 

Wanda didn't love the thought of other mamas wearing _her_ mother's clothes, but it was a better thought than everything just going into the trash. Something in her chest loosened a fraction at this information, and it was that little bit easier to breathe. 

Charles hummed. "I'd think you would have explained that to the children, old friend," he told papa. His voice had changed again; as had his eyes. He looked at papa like he was, suddenly, very sad. "You turned yourself to ice, to stop the hurting, but you shut them out, too. They are hurting, too. They need you." 

_Papa doesn't listen,_ Wanda thought, and Charles translated the thought aloud. 

"I do!" Erik started to say, and then amended, "I think I do." 

This was too much to take. "He doesn't if we don't yell! So I get louder and louder, and still he doesn't hear me, so I threw him!" 

She hadn't meant to do it. She hadn't even known she could, until she got so mad power exploded out of her hands and eyes and mouth and skin, lifting Papa and slamming him into the stair wheeling so hard he went to sleep and the whole house shook. "And yet still he doesn't see us. I guess he wants us to go away forever!" 

The silence that followed was absolute. Wanda wondered if she'd said something bad; if she was about to be sent to her room. 

_Of course I'm bad,_ she thought bitterly. _Papa hates me. He wishes I were dead. I wish I was dead, too._

Charles went very still in his chair, his eyes only on her. 

"Oh, sweetheart," he said, and his voice was so soft it made her want to weep. "No. Your Papa doesn't want that. Nobody wants that." 

A single tear escaped Wanda, slipping down her cheek and wetting the sofa. She'd prided herself on not crying after Mama died, taking all her sad feelings and, like magic, turning them into mad feelings instead. It seemed the sad was coming out after all. 

"Wants what?" Papa asked. "Charles, what did she--" 

There was a silence. Wanda wondered if Charles was tattling on her secret thoughts to Papa. Papa's next breath was very sharp indeed. Wanda flinched. 

"She thinks _that_?" Papa asked, his voice rather faint. "Because of... me?" 

The next silence was a long one as the two men conversed telepathically. Pietro, confused, snuggled down further. 

"Wanda?" Erik said finally, turning to his lump of daughter on the sofa. "I love you." 

This was startling enough to earn him a twitch. 

"And I'm... sorry, that I haven't been listening. I will listen." 

"From now on," Charles prompted. 

"From now on," Erik agreed. "I truly-- lost sight of you. That's not what Papas should do." 

The curtain of black hair parted. A single blue eye peeped through. 

"I understand you might not believe me," Erik continued. "I haven't given you any reason to trust me lately. So I... I hope to show you, over time, that I am... present." 

"Do you have anything you'd like to say?" Charles asked. "You too, Pietro. How are you feeling?" 

A lot of things, actually. Confused. Angry. _Tired._ Bone-deep tired. Sleep-for-a-week exhausted. But first-- 

"Hungry," Wanda admitted; not because _she_ was, but because she felt the tiny rumble of Pietro's stomach against her back. 

"Okay," Charles nodded. "Alright. We can work with that." 

"I will go get food," Ororo said. "If you loan me your car, Lehnsherr. What are they partial to?" 

It was surprising, to hear Papa rattle off a list of their favorite foods without pausing to think. It was surprising that he remembered what they liked. 

As soon as the tall woman left the room, car keys in hand, Charles turned a kindly smile to the twins. "You're becoming overwhelmed, aren't you?" 

Wanda didn't know what 'overwhelmed' meant, but it sounded right. This was all too much. It sapped her energy. When Pietro sat up, so did she. 

"How about you two rest up before lunch?" Charles suggested. "Your Papa and I have a lot to talk about. I'm glad we all had this conversation." 

Wanda nodded. She was glad, too. This was the first time in months she felt _heard._ She'd been screaming for so long with nobody to listen. 

Pietro tugged her hand, leading her to the hallway. She let herself be pulled. 

They went into Pietro's room, because it was cleaner, and the bed was stacked with soft toys to cuddle. 

Pietro waited until Wanda got in the bed, scooting to the far wall, before climbing in between her and the door. Then he put his head on her back. "What's going on?" he asked in soft Polish. 

"I don't know," Wanda replied. "Do you think he means it? About stuff being different?" 

"I don't know," Pietro sighed. "I hope so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think? Worth continuing?
> 
> Title in reference to [an old fictionpress story](https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2289451/1/Older-Than-Me-Younger-Than-You) someone wrote that I loved way back in the day, which was never completed. (No, this story has nothing to do with that one. I just miss that story.)


	2. Chapter 2

Charles's house was _huge._ As big as a mall, it felt like. Wanda held tight to Pietro's hand, nervous, as they were guided to all the important rooms. Bathroom, kitchen, gardens, swimming pool...

"Would you like your own rooms?" Erik asked. "Or would you like to share?"

"There's no need to share!" Charles said, travelling in his wheelchair alongside them. "There's plenty of space..."

"I wanna stay with Pietro," Wanda said quickly, and tried not to sound as nervous as she felt. She clung to his hand all the tighter. She was afraid she might get lost otherwise, in the carpet deep enough to sink in and the oil paintings bigger than her whole body. Bigger than _papa's_ whole body.

"I see," Charles said. Wanda wondered if he was looking into her head again. "Very well. There's a wing I think your family will find very comfortable."

He led them to an elevator-- the house had stairs; a _lot_ of stairs, but Wanda supposed that wasn't good for someone using a wheelchair. "Wanda?" he asked, his blue eyes sparkling in a fun way, the way mama's eyes used to sparkle. "Would you push the button with a three on it?"

She did, and up they rose.

Floor three was a lot brighter than floor one. It had big windows; whole walls full of them, and tables with vases of flowers on them, and white statues of naked people with curly hair. Pietro giggled at the boobies, then quickly covered his mouth, hoping papa hadn't noticed.

The flowers were real, and they smelled so pretty Wanda wanted to bury her face in them and breathe in. Instead she followed Charles as he led them to a room with two long beds and two dressers and two tables inside. The room was almost as big as their whole apartment.

"I know it doesn't look very fun for kids right now," Charles told the twins. "But we can fix that. We can fill it with things you like. What do you think?"

Wanda looked around at the empty shelves and the wallpaper covered in seashells. She went over to touch one of the beds and found the blanket softer than a kitten when she pet it.  
  
She noticed the window was one of those cool windows that pushed out of the house, forming a seat with a cushion to sit on and look on.

"Ooh!" she said, excited, pointing. Papa and Charles both smiled.

"That's called a bay window," papa explained, and Charles wheeled over to it, showing Wanda how the cushion could be lifted up to show an empty cubby underneath.  
  
"To keep secrets in," he said, and winked.

Pietro was looking at a door at the far wall. "What's that for?" he asked.

"Open it," Charles suggested, so Pietro did and found... another door.

"Huh?" he asked, his nose wrinkling in confusion, and opened that one, too.

On the other side was a bedroom similar to the one they stood inside, only it only had one big bed, one dressar, one table. It had a TV, too.

"That could be your father's room," Charles suggested.

Papa peeked inside. Wanda couldn't tell if he liked it or not. His face almost never said what he was thinking.

But Charles always knew what papa was thinking. He looked at papa and lightly touched his arm.

"No, old friend," he said softly. "You don't owe me anything."

"But--!" Papa protested, turning to look at him.

"It's no trouble. I've been lonesome. I'm happy for the company."

Papa and Charles looked at each other for a long time. Maybe they were talking in their heads. Wanda looked at them, trying to guess at their thoughts.

Then Ororo stepped into the room and set a big paper bag down on one of the beds. It tipped over, and Pietro's blue pony tumbled out.

Pietro smiled real big and zipped across the room in a blur of silver light, causing everyone else to jump. Pietro didn't seem to notice; he was too busy dumping his bag of horses out. Ororo had packed all of them for him, it seemed.

"Pietro," Papa said, a little crease between his eyebrows. "Can you come here, please?"

...

Most children with a mutant parent turned out to be mutated in some way also. Very, very few did not inherit the gene. Though Magda had been human, it did not surprise Erik in the slightest that both of his children were exceptional.

No. What _surprised_ him was that their mutations had manifested so _young._ For most mutants, their powers came at or just after the onset of puberty. Not at six years old!

One prematurely mutated child was a coincidence. But two?

Of course, the fact that they were twins might play a factor in their similarities... but they were fraternal, not identical. Two eggs, two sperms, two placentas, two amniotic sacs. Genetically speaking, Wanda and Pietro were no closer than any other set of siblings.

Erik rubbed at his chin as he thought. The scientist in him wanted to experiment; to take blood samples; to set up shop in an underground lab and study and ponder until another secret opened itself for him. But...

"You are needed in the daylight, old friend," Charles said, entering Erik's room with a smile on his face and compassion in his eyes. "Not buried where none can reach you."

Erik sighed. He wasn't too surprised at how easily he'd fallen into the habit of mental conversion with the other man. They were just... _Like_ that. They always had been, fitting together like two perfect puzzle pieces. It scared him, sometimes. That was one of the reasons he'd left the first time. He should have known there was no leaving something like this forever.

"You love them," Charles said.

"I do." _But I was never meant to be a father._

Charles frowned. **Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who can say? You are one now. Whether or not you're a good one is a choice.**

_I don't know how to be a good one!_

**Then, old friend, it's your job to learn.**

Erik felt a little stung by this. He'd wanted Charles to agree with him; to say that he just wasn't cut out for this work, and it was an unfortunate fact of life.

**You want me to absolve you of your responsibilities. I'm not going to. They didn't ask to be born. You made them. Take care of them. I will help you all that I can, but this is your life's work now, Erik.**

Once more, Erik was left with nothing to say.

"Papa?" Wanda's small voice in the doorway made them both look up. She was wearing a red nightie, and her hair, damp from her bath, hung down her shoulders. She was holding a comb. "Um. Would... Would you brush my hair?"

She looked a little fearful. Erik realized he couldn't remember the last time she'd come to him for anything. They'd been fighting for so long...

**Choose, Erik.**

Erik closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I would love to, tygrysku," he said, using her old nickname; the feminine derivative of "tiger cub."

He looked at Charles. Charles looked back and gave him a smile. Turning to the bathroom, he called, "Pietro? Do you mind if I'm the one to wash your hair tonight?"

...

Combing Wanda's hair was not the relaxing bonding activity it sounded like. Her hair was full of snarls, and her mouth was full of curses he hadn't known she knew as he picked through them. A few clumps of hair were so matted that he had no choice but to cut them.

At one particularly painful tug, Wanda's skin grew alight with shimmering red, and Erik winced, expecting an attack.

"Breathe," he whispered, dropping the comb to touch her back instead, putting his forehead to her shoulder. "Breathe, Wanda. You are in control."

Wanda breathed sharply through her teeth, her fingers clenched in her lap. Erik hummed to her, soft, until the sparks began to fade.

"You did good," he told her, though he felt a bit foolish. Shouldn't it be obvious that she did good? Shouldn't she know?

Apparently she didn't. She smiled at him, eyes watery.

"Papa?"

"Yes?"

"Can we cut my hair short like a boy's?"

Erik blinked, surprised. They'd always kept her hair long.

"Do you want that?"

"Yes. I hate washing it, I hate brushing it. I hate the way it feels when its sweaty on my neck. I hate when people look at me and say 'oh, what a pretty little girl!' I don't want any of it!"

"Then you don't have to have it. I'll ask Charles to tell us a good barber tomorrow, if you can promise to be good and not show your powers to them."

She nodded frantically, looking surprised that he'd agreed so easily.

"Do you not like being called pretty?" Erik asked, and resumed his combing.

Wanda shook her head. "I don't like it at all!"

Well. That was that, then.

"Do you want to be my gruesome little goblin, instead?" he asked, half teasing, and was rewarded with an enormous smile. He gave her back an affectionate pat.

"Hey, goblin."

"Yes?"

"I have something I wanted to show you." Erik crossed the room to the closet-- his closet now-- and reached to the shelf above the hanging clothes to pull down a shoebox.

He carried it over to the table Wanda sat at and set it down, taking the lid off.

His ever-curious child leaned forward to peer inside and saw only tissue paper.

"What is it?"

In answer, Erik pulled the first item out, unwrapping it and setting it down.

"Mama's necklace!" Wanda exclaimed, genuinely shocked. She touched the tiny star of David on its long silver chain.

"Yes. Someday, it will be yours."

Wanda's eyes went wide as saucers.

Erik pulled out another item, then another. Another. A headscarf. A little glass bird. A tiny bottle of perfume. All Magda's things.

"I kept some of your mother's things," Erik said. "Because I..."

It was so hard to talk about. Talking at all was just something Erik was not good at. And feelings? Erik was terrible at feelings.

... But he wanted, he needed, to choose to be a good father. Even if he really didn't know how.

"Because I miss her, too."

Wanda touched the bird's delicate wing with one careful finger, then quickly snatched her hand back.

"I break things," Wanda whispered, head hanging. "You should put those away."

"Wanda..."

Erik didn't know what to say. He never knew what to say. It was true: Wanda did break things. She'd broken their old home. She'd nearly broken his spine. But he still wanted... He still...

"Whenever you miss your mother," Erik finished finally. "You can come to me. We can look at her things and talk about her. Because you aren't the only one who's sad, and sometimes... Sometimes being sad together can help."

When she said nothing, he handed her a piece of tissue paper. "Want to help me put the things away?"

She did. She carefully wrapped the necklace and the headscarf and the bird and the perfume, and one by one they were placed back in the box.

"I miss when she told us stories," Wanda admitted. "The funny ones that she made up on the spot."

Erik nodded, remembering coming home to find Magda and the twins snuggled on the sofa, laughing and joking and talking absolute nonsense. "That must have been fun."

"It was so fun..."

Wanda looked a little teary-eyed. She looked at his hands and, when he turned one of them over, she reached across the table and put hers into it.

Erik studied the way their hands fit together; her tiny, soft one in his large callused one. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

"Wanda?" he asked, still looking only at their hands. "I love you. I'm so sorry I haven't been a good papa. I'm going to try harder, okay?"

The silence lingered. After a long moment, he dared look up at his daughter, and flinched when he saw tears in her wide blue eyes.

"I love you, too," Wanda whispered.


End file.
